Sleep
by Bellsie805
Summary: And she can't sleepinsomniacs' anonymous anyone?


Title: Sleep

Author: Bellsie

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Not mine

Character: Cuddy

Author's Notes: Thanks to Marti for the beta.

Sometimes, she can't sleep.

It's strange and wrong (all wrong, no rights) and she can't figure out her insomnia. She collapses over books and journals at seven, yet her body refuses to stop and her mind races marathons at ten. Somehow, somewhere, between context and pretense there's an answer.

Unfortunately, her mind's been corroded with acids and warped with water—a toxic cocktail and a midnight matinee. Two plus two, she concedes, might not equal four (why? Because she's drunk and high and those fingers look blurry and oh-God-_dipsy-tipsy_).

Jeopardy is a dumb game. Giving the questions to the answers—when, dear God, when do the answers ever come first? We're given questions—enigmas and puzzles—and we're asked to figure them out and explain the phenomenon—who the hell provides the answer first?

(She's always had a little crush on Alex Trebek's mustache. Not the man and his yes-yes-me-I'm-trying-hard-to-be-funny attitude. But damn it! It's the mustache.)

She laughs and opens the refrigerator to find nothing (and remembers why—feminism has its drawbacks).

Oh, feminism. Shit. She's been a feminist for how long now? Eighth grade at least and she's thirty (forty) and time moves like a Concorde jet (they're grounded now; one crashed and supersonic speeding through the sky reeks of tragedy anyway). So, thirty (forty) minus twelve and she gets twenty-eight and that's the age she wants to be and she's not it's just a hardened belief that, yeah, she's stronger than somebody else because she can hiss and people listen…

…She misses being nice. Ninth grade and she spiraled into a vortex of narcissism and sarcasm and she'll never get a man (she'll never get a man).

She's not sure she needs one and she lets the Cool Whip in its spray can land on her tongue in a wispy imitation of a cloud, all fluffy and white. She doesn't need a man—she doesn't need people.

(And it's House's syndrome but her disease—how can she ever explain that she aimed towards self-destruction in her early life because rebellion was fun…)

She wore high heels when she was angry and a frown on her face when she was happy. Incongruities abounded, but she was an Atomic fireball of righteous indignation in high school and college and then she got to graduate school and met House and watched him and understood him.

(She knew for the first time in her life that this is what she wanted to be—she wanted to own him, to brand him, to stamp him).

Full moon tonight. She peeks out her curtained window to look on cacophonous streets (the moon and its recycled light enables her to view cats scampering and squirrels stalking the streets—animals and their symphonies). Full moon tonight and the tides are high and the tides are low and the ball of rock in the sky controls the tub of water here and sometimes she tries to figure out how any of this makes sense (it doesn't).

Her ideal man plays to her romantic side (House is a good fuck but not a loving companion). Her ideal man takes her to dinner, Broadway, and home again. He reads her Eliot's poetry (_Prufrock…_"the women come and go/talking of Michelangelo"). Like in that Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet movie she wants her lover to take her to the beach in the winter time (she wants him to name the stars and introduce her to constellations, "Lisa Cuddy, meet Cassiopeia. Lisa Cuddy, meet Orion. Lisa Cuddy…)

Her mother liked Lisa, but she hates the name. She wanted something wildly original (rebellion's the key theme). She wanted Skye or Harmony or Adele, but her parents were uptight Republicans with a staunch love of country—Lisa's the end result.

Hates the Yankees, loves her hospital. Has too much debt. Buys too many suits from Neiman Marcus. Wears Coco Mademoiselle. Speaks fluent French and broken Spanish. Can play Texas Hold 'em. Spits watermelon seeds. Hates too much. Loves too little. Conflicted most of the day. Clarity arrives at ten.

Simple facts (convoluted truths). All these lies, lies, lies, that she tells herself to keep herself from falling (and if you asked her where she was falling to, to where she would end up, she wouldn't know and she'd have to lie, lie, lie).

_Pitter-patter_. And then there's a bitter batter—a mixture of blood when she bites her tongue and childhood bubble gum—she's a chewer hooked on a pink, sticky substance. Smoking could kill her; chewing gum can save her (but she's not sure she wants to be saved—she'd rather an explosion—something gaudy, something grand).

Her toes hurt and her bones ache, yet she continues to try some New-Age jazz about relaxing the muscles and calming the mind. But she's never been good at that and she can't apply her father's adage of _close your eyes and let your mind drift_ because she's not a little girl anymore and that's scary thought and she misses and she wants and she's scared and she cries…

…And no one notices because she's all alone (alone, alone, alone, lonely). She'd love someone, she promises! She'd love them and care for them and she'd nurture and educate—she'd be the best mother she could (she'd be the best wife). But she's lonely, alone, alone, alone.

Tomorrow there's work and there's a hospital. Tomorrow there are bills and donors and House. Tomorrow and its inevitability, yesterday and its concrete, today and its emptiness. There are equations she makes when she talks about time, but she should sleep, must sleep.

But sleep doesn't come to insomniacs (she's a doctors, she should know that and she knows that, but she doesn't want to admit that she's afraid that this is more. Insanity…well, sanity's really much better).

She laughs because it's night and she still sleeps with a stuffed animal she's had forever (and ever). She a sentimentalist at heart (didn't anyone ever tell her that feminism and sentimentalism don't mix? It's toxic—it'll destroy her). She keeps this, she shouldn't, she hangs onto people much harder than she should…

She lives too much and loves too long.

And finally, she peels away into sleep. Sometimes it's just too much.

(The morning will find her clearheaded and happy, but sometimes in the dead of night, she just can't sleep and just can't help to think…)


End file.
